Family Matters
by Psychee
Summary: Dean has a unique insight into family relationships.
1. Chapter 1

This fiction veers off from the rest of the season pretty fast after episode 12.8 LOTUS.

This is a work of derivative fiction and no copyright infringement is intended.

Family Matters

When Dean collapsed on his memory foam mattress, sleep hit him fast and unnaturally hard. One second his eyes had just slipped shut and the next he stood in a grey billowing fog. She was there, clothed in night with fire in her eyes and a smile that was bestowed on him like a twisted benediction.

"This is a dream, you're gone," he whispered, though he knew it was a lie.

"Just because I'm with my brother doesn't mean that I will ever leave you, Dean. We're connected; past, present and for always." Amara raised her hand, beckoned to him, her auburn hair curled at the base of her neck.

He fought a losing battle not to be drawn into her embrace. She was beautiful and she terrified him. He wanted her more than any woman he had ever known. She was in his blood and under his skin, just like the Mark had been. Uncomfortable with the intensity of his feelings and the intensity of her gaze, he looked away; pretended to study his surroundings. There wasn't a lot to see; the nothingness was made luminous only by the radiance of The Darkness. He cleared his throat, searched for something to say to break the awkward silence. "So, ah, thanks for Mom."

"You gave me back my brother. I wanted to give you what you needed and that has always been your family."

Dean nodded, acknowledging that his family was all he ever really had and all he ever really needed. He was uncomfortably aware of how his heart raced and his blood surged; his body's treacherous response because he was close to her. He filled the silence again, "You and Chuck, it going okay?"

Amara looked thoughtful but also pleased, as if he had asked something important. "Our relationship is complex. We are still reconciling, both working to forgive. It's difficult. I missed him, but find it hard to give up all my anger. It was the solace to my sorrow when I was betrayed.

"I want to understand him better. I think that will help me exorcise my jealousy over his choosing his creations over me.

"I need your help, Dean. You seem to have a unique understanding of sibling relationships." Amara walked slowly to him. She lowered her eyes and stared up at him through her dusky lashes; placed a hand lightly on his chest over his wildly beating heart.

Dean tried to swallow but his throat was suddenly dry. "What do you need?"

"Just you."

Dean woke fast and gasped for air; his eyes searched his room and his heart tried to escape through each of his pulse points. His sheets were drenched in sweat. His skin felt uncomfortably hot and tight. He shook his head and tried to convince himself it had been a dream. He tried harder not to hope it would happen again.

He took a shower and decided not to mention it to Sam. Why borrow trouble when there was always enough to go around.

Weeks passed. Mom left. Castiel left to find Lucifer. Lucifer was found and put back in time-out. Things happened: most bad, a few good. Mom came back. Castiel came back. Things went bump in the night and the Winchesters continued saving people and hunting things.

Life returned to their version of normal.

Except one night when it wasn't.

Dean was exhausted from a difficult hunt and wanted to sleep more than he wanted his next beer. He hadn't even staggered all the way to his bed when the dream came, and she came with it.

"Dean, I understand now. Thank you."

He shrugged off the disorienting transition from his room in the bunker to the nothingness that was all he could see and moved closer to his only source of light, mesmerized as always. "Don't know what I did, but you're welcome." His hand jerked as he fought the impulse to reach out and stroke her hair. "What do you understand?"

She took his hand in hers and clasped it to her breast. "Why my brother loved…loves his creations so much; why he locked me away to protect them. I didn't understand how he could choose them over me, but now it's so clear."

Amara stepped back from him and raised her arms. Lightening flashed in the nothingness and momentarily blinded Dean. When he blinked his vision back, he saw that Amara cradled a bundle to her chest. Eyes soft and smile gentle, she gazed lovingly at the bundle before she presented it to Dean. "I have created life. I understand now the deep, all consuming need to protect it. I would destroy this universe if I thought it would keep her from one moment of pain."

Dean took the offered bundle; a swaddled newborn. The babe was beautiful with a cap of auburn hair and deep green eyes. She stared at Dean with a knowing intensity than was not normal for an infant. Power prickled up his arms.

"She is ours. I have named her Samara.

"You will care for her now. While creating life is wondrous and she is more precious to me than I ever thought another entity could be, tending a young life is very tedious and time consuming and I'm still learning to be a family again with my brother."

The baby started to fuss so Dean instinctively put her to his shoulder and patted her back. "I can't take her!"

"Of course you can. You raised your brother, more or less, successfully. You have the knowledge needed to raise my creation."

"I'm a hunter. It wouldn't be safe for her to be with me and that's no life to raise a child in," he protested quietly, still gently jostling the baby who responded with a happy gurgle.

"Samara is not a child. She is not human," Amara asserted indignantly, as if insulted, "She is the daughter of The Darkness and the Righteous Man, Michael's Sword, the Mark Bearer and, most importantly, my chosen."

Dean had no rebuttal because he was suddenly alone. He looked around seeing only a foggy void. He moved the babe from his shoulder to cradle her in the nook of his arm and gifted her with a sigh that was a combination of resignation and exasperation.

"Samara, huh, well do you want to be called Sami or Mara." The baby scrunched her tiny nose and cooed thoughtfully. "Mara? Sounds a lot like Mary; that's your grandmother's name. Just as well since there's already one pretty, pretty princess Sammy in the bunker," Dean gently rocked his daughter and murmured absently, "and he's gonna be really surprised to meet you."

Dean looked around the emptiness and wondered exactly how he was supposed to get back.

It was as simple as waking up.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Dean woke in his bed on his mattress that remembered him. He wasn't alone in the bed, a glory of warmth nestled on his chest. He tightened his arms around the bundle and it burbled. He sat up, swiveled his legs and set his feet on the floor. He held a baby, swaddled in a pink blanket.

"You're not a dream are you?"

The infant met his eyes and smiled with a little spit bubble bursting from her lips.

He pulled the bundle closer to his chest and gently rocked forward then back. He was not prepared to take care of a baby. He didn't have anything that a baby would need, except love. He had a vague memory of Sammy as a baby and their dad carrying everything that his little brother needed in one diaper bag. One diaper bag didn't seem so bad. He would need to get bottles, formula, diapers, and some onesies. He could manage that; if he broke it down, it didn't seem so overwhelming. He'd need to make a trip into town soon to get supplies.

Oh, he would also need a car seat. His baby would be riding in Baby, the third generation to throw up in her back seat. He smiled at the thought.

Dean briefly thought that he should be more concerned about having to take care of Mara, about her very existence, than he was. He clutched her closer and promptly forgot what he was thinking and focused once more on her needs.

He just hoped that little Mara drank milk and not souls like her mother did.

"Are you hungry, baby girl? Let's go see what we can find. Maybe we'll look for Sammy and try to break it to him gently that he's an uncle." Dean stood and ambled into the hallway, intent on raiding the kitchen for anything vaguely baby-ish.

Sam was headed toward his bedroom when he saw Dean walking down the corridor away from him. He had just gotten a lead on Kelly and Lucifer's soon to be born spawn. He was going to wait and tell his brother in the morning but since he was awake, he could share the news now. "Hey, Dean," he called as he approach his brother from behind.

Dean turned at the sound of his name.

"Dean, I just heard from Cas..." Sam stopped, forgot what he was going to say. "What…Is That…Where…How….."

"Speak in sentences, Sam, you've been doing it since you were eighteen months old," Dean teased. He acted as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be walking down a corridor in a supernaturally secure bunker, in the middle of the night, carrying a blanket full of infant.

"Dean," Sam said slowly, drew out each letter of the name. He stared to make certain he saw what he thought he saw. "Is that a baby?" He blinked quickly but the image remained. "That's a baby! Where did a baby come from?"

Dean glanced down at Mara. She cooed adorably. He looked at his brother. "Well Sam, when a cosmic deity of entropy and a totally awesome man lust each other very much…"

Sam sputtered. "That's not even…entropy…how do you even…Wait! Wait. Are you talking about Amara? She…you…a baby?"

"Sam, Sam, take a breath."

"That's a baby Dean."

"I know Sam."

"That's Amara's baby?"

"Yes, Sam. She looks just like her mother. Auburn hair…"

"Amara had brown hair," Sam corrected.

Dean startled. "No, she was totally a hot red head."

"No, Dean, Amara had brown hair."

Dean looked down at his daughter, her head crowned by light brown curls. "Huh."

"Which is totally irrelevant. Dean, why do you have Amara's baby?"

"I have her because Amara wanted to create something so she could understand her brother better and wanted to start small. She made a baby and named her Samara. She gave her to me because apparently creating life is more fun than actually taking care of the life afterward."

"But why you?"

"She's mine."

"Yours as in…Is that even possible?"

Dean nodded toward his pink swaddled bundle.

"Ok," Sam admitted, "well obviously it's possible. When? Amara's been gone for several months and we practically live in each other's pockets. If you'd left for a…ah…tryst, I wouldn't have known."

Dean thought carefully before he answered. "I don't think I actually went anywhere, except to sleep. A few months ago, I had a really weird dream. Amara was there and then she became an enormous dark, warm light. I was a light too, small and bright. It was like a firefly on the face of a solar eclipse. My light was…mingled…with the dark light. Then I woke up."

The younger Winchester looked thoughtful. "You were a small bright light? Are you saying that Amara used your soul?"

Dean shrugged one shoulder, "I guess. I was like the bright little ball of energy that was your soul when Death stuffed it back in your body. Only, of course, my ball was bigger."

Sam frowned at his brother's suggestive word choice; this wasn't the time for sophomoric, no moronic, humor. They needed to consider the cosmic implications of the infant. "So she isn't a Nephilim, like Lucifer and Kelly's baby will be, part angel and part human. She's potentially much worse.

"She's part soul and part what? Deity? Demi-god? Are the angels going to be after her too? Is she some all-powerful, destructive force? Amara was a force of Darkness. She corrupted the Mark that corrupted Lucifer, who corrupted mankind. What type of power will her daughter have? Have you even thought about that!"

Dean shook his head, exasperated. "She isn't the next big bad. She isn't a force of destruction. She's a baby, Sam, she's just a baby." He then looked down at his daughter and mumbled quietly so his brother wouldn't hear, "Just one that isn't human."

"She's not just a baby, Dean!" Sam declared loudly but futilely. He saw his brother's jaw tense as the stubborn set in and decided he had better try a different tactic. "Alright, let's pretend she's _just_ a baby," Sam shook his head in denial while he said it, his gesture contradicting his words. "The way we live, this life, you can't do that to a child. Demons, angels, reapers and all the other supernatural things that want to kill us, it's not safe. You can't raise a baby, Dean. "

"She's mine Sam. Who else should raise her?"

Sam brought his hands up and ran them through his hair as he paced away from his brother and then back. He was agitated and annoyed with his shoot-first-ask-questions-later brother's willful refusal to see the potential problems associated with the mere existence of Amara's small creation; much less having it in the bunker. "I don't know what you're thinking, Dean." Sam said, "We don't even know what she is."

Dean looked down at his daughter, cuddled in his arms. He looked at his brother and answered simply. "She's family, Sam. She's family."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Dean looked down at Mara. His brother's concern washed over him without even getting him damp. His daughter rested safely in his arms and looked at him with such trust that his heart began to swell with love. Literally began to swell and it was rapidly becoming hard to breathe. He gently thrust her toward Sam. "Hold her."

Sam tried to back away but he wasn't quick enough. He reflexively grasped the bundle pushed against his chest. He looked down, his eyes met hers. Transfixed, he stared.

Dean was able to breathe freely, finally able to think a little more clearly. "Sam, I think that she's…"

"Adorable. She's adorable Dean." Sam touched her nose with his index finger. Mara grasped it strongly, pink lips pursed in concentration at this new toy. Sam forgot his concerns, lost in her innocent charm.

Dean smiled softly at the infant in his brother's arms. "Yeah, she is," he agreed, his thoughts interrupted. He blinked a couple of times and backtracked in his mind to what he had wanted to say. "Sam, I think she's…"

"Samara's eyes are so blue, Dean," Sam said dreamily. "They remind me of Jesse's eyes. I always loved the color of Jesse's eyes, blue like the promise in a summer sky."

Dean, once more interrupted, looked at his daughter and then at his brother. "Okay, a couple of things. One, it's Mara. Samara is too long for such a little thing; and you're lucky I thought that calling her Sami would put too many pretty, pretty princesses in the bunker. Two, her eyes are green, not blue!"

Sam looked at his brother's eyes and then back down at the same hazel green of his niece's irises. He was certain her eyes had been blue.

Sam tore his eyes from his niece and met his brother's instead. "Dean, I think there's something special about her." Sam cuddled the baby closer to his heart. It made him feel good to hold her there. He smelled the odor that is all baby; a mix of newness and baby powder. His concerns of just a few minutes before now seemed over blown and ridiculous. He realized that his sudden lack of concern was a reason for concern.

"Of course she's special, Sam. She's my daughter."

"No, Dean, I think she's very special."

"As in?"

"As in you know what I mean, special, not bad special but definitely special special; I'm just not sure how special."

Dean watched Sam clutch the bundle of baby closer to his chest, as if he thought she might be snatched away. Dean considered snatching her away. His arms felt empty.

"Still," Sam continued thoughtfully, "Maybe it's not magic but just what babies do; their new life smell, their big innocent eyes and cute pinchable round cheeks just suck you in. Their cuteness is an evolutionary adaptation to make sure the species is continued."

Dean held out his arms and made a gimme gesture that Sam ignored. He tried to remember why he was so upset that Dean had brought Amara's daughter into the bunker but all he could think of was how fragile she felt in his arms, that this was his brother's child, his family. He had a sudden fierce need to protect her. It felt so right though it was logically so wrong.

"Dean," Sam started slowly, as he tried to get his thoughts in order. "I think that she…"

"Makes you love her?" Dean finished for him.

"Yeah."

Dean sighed and took his daughter back. "Maybe we should call, Cas."

"Maybe we should call Mom," Sam contradicted.


End file.
